2007:1186 - ST MALACHY’S SCHOOL, ANNE STREET, DUNDALK, Louth

Test-pits were excavated in June 2007 on a site for a 36m by 11.5m extension to St Malachy’s Infant School, Anne Street. The development site was situated c. 80m to the west of the Ardee Gate and was therefore outside the area of the medieval town.
The site of St Malachy’s School in demesne townland is shown as open ground outside the town wall on Richardson’s map of 1680 and on the Clanbrassil estate map of 1782–87. The first-edition 6-inch OS map of 1836 and O’Hagan’s map of Dundalk of 1853 show a wood or plantation along the south-east boundary of the demesne, covering the site where the school was later built. The demesne was parkland attached to Dundalk House from the 1740s until the 1930s. The red-brick Tudoresque school by George Ashlin, which is a protected structure, has a date stone of 1900 on the west front.
Six test-pits were excavated through the tarmac and concrete surface of the schoolyard. Natural subsoil, sandy and stony clay, was encountered at a depth of 0.5m at the west, falling to 0.85m along the eastern side of the site. Overlying the deeper subsoil to the east was a layer of grey mud/clay, 0.15m thick, with no inclusions, probably also a natural deposit. Above the natural deposits were various stony clay and rubble fills, the latter containing some brick fragments and slates. The material recorded in the test-pits was much as to be expected on a site which lay outside the medieval town and had seen no development until 1900.